PIME TARADOX

So, Kongye has already contributed her thoughts on Journeyman, but I figured I'd take special note of the most amazing plot thread of the pilot, which is that Kevin McKidd's heroic journey is that he spends most of show fucking up a random guy's life as much as he can.

Step 1: Kevin McKidd is sent back in time and he stops a suicidal man from getting himself run over by a trolley. He gets the man's name (I think it's Neil,) and goes on his way.

Step 2: A few years later, Kevin McKidd runs into Neil in a cafe. Neil is having a conversation with his pregnant girlfriend, wherein he basically tells her that he doesn't want to take care of the baby and she should get an abortion. Kevin McKidd confronts the girlfriend and tells her how totally special it is to have a child, even if it is in a fucked up relationship. She goes back to Neil and eventually gets married to him at some point.

Step 3: Kevin McKidd finds out that Neil kills his wife and child in 1997.

Step 4: Kevin McKidd goes back in time to 1997 and tracks down Neil, who is stalking his wife and child so he can shoot them. As Neil crosses the street while drawing his gun, Kevin calls out his name.

(This is where it gets good.)

Neil turns around AND IS PROMPTLY HIT BY A BUS. He goes flying like 20 feet and smashes into another car's windshield, dying instantly. At this point, I am laughing hysterically. The wife goes up to Kevin and reveals that Neil had threatened to kill her, then Kevin goes back into the timewarp.

So let's review Kevin McKidd's contributions to the life of Neil: He stopped him from killing himself, and instead pushed him into a loveless, abusive marriage with a child he didn't want, and then HE GOT HIM KILLED ANYWAY. All he did was make Neil's miserable failure of a life that many years longer and that much shittier. MY HERO.*

"I did it for the lulz."

*(Actually, it turns out the real goal of his mission was to make sure that Neil's wife got pregnant so the kid could pull a bunch of third world peasants out of a burning bus or something, but it's funnier if you ignore that scene and just pretend that this is like Quantum Leap except Scott Bakula's mission was to be the biggest asshole ever to random bystanders.)